


Smouldering

by velocitygrass



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: picfor1000, M/M, POV Original Character, Pyromania
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-25
Updated: 2007-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velocitygrass/pseuds/velocitygrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Greg had learned early that playing with fire was better done where no one would notice.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smouldering

**Author's Note:**

> Written for picfor1000. You can see the prompt image at the end of the fic. Thank you very much to rilestar for the beta.
> 
> Content note: The fic contains dark imagery, with the POV character both fantasizing about and remembering scenarios involving fire, some of them involving animals and humans. He's pretty screwed up besides the pyromania too.

He couldn't tear his eyes from them from the moment he first saw them.

"This is the panic room. Everything that's dangerous, but not in a useful way, goes here. There's some normal unstable material, but also some really weird stuff. The little signs the scientists write... McKay's are the best."

He didn't hear anything after that because his eyes and mind were fixed on the sign on a few containers to his right. The red square on rough, but clean paper. The black flame above the simple, but beautiful words.

~~

_Greg had learned early that playing with fire was better done where no one would notice. He'd been lucky that the first fire he'd set had been blamed on his rebellious sister, even though she denied it vehemently. After that he stuck to the barren lands near their home._

_He would go outside and find some new material and a box of matches. There was a hidden spot beyond the garbage dump, where he could set everything up and then see how it was consumed by flames. His mother was glad that he went to play outside and didn't get in trouble like his sister. He was glad that he could make things light up every day._

~~

When he first saw Sheppard, he knew immediately that the rumors had been right. From his stance to his smile to his non-regulation hair, John Sheppard was someone who charmed his way through life. He didn't need to see how Weir acted around Sheppard to know _why_ Sheppard had been promoted.

And it wasn't just her.

~~

_Greg didn't set animals on fire. He'd once found a dead squirrel and burned it. He didn't like the smell. And killing things was wrong._

_Sometimes, though, an insect would be stuck under whatever he'd set up and when the flames reached it, it would crackle and pop. It made Greg shudder, but he didn't mind it._

~~

He could see through Sheppard and Sheppard apparently didn't like it.

After his first mission Greg got a chewing out, because he supposedly hadn't taken care of the scientist. Greg just listened with gritted teeth and did the weapons training with the scientist as Sheppard ordered. 

And he watched Sheppard.

~~

_Greg joined the local Volunteer Fire Department as soon as he was 18. Most of the time they didn't deal with actual fires. But when they did it was beautiful. Bigger and more overwhelming than he could have dreamed of setting up._

_He had to hide his fascination of course. He became good at putting out fires, even though it hurt him every time that the flames receded and finally disappeared. But that very first sight, when the fire roared uncontrolled, was worth it._

~~

Greg saw many female soldiers and scientists with that glow on their face after Sheppard afforded them an easy smile. He never actually saw Sheppard act on it. But of course Sheppard would be careful. He suspected Sheppard fucked many and made every one of them feel very special.

When Sheppard assigned him to stand guard at nights for one of his apparent infractions, he decided to use the time and find out who and how many exactly Sheppard had sex with.

The first two nights Sheppard turned in early. On the third night he went to see McKay. If there was one person on the base who grated more on him than Sheppard it was McKay, who believed he was God's gift and answer to everything. It figured that the two of them got along well.

Sheppard stayed two hours with McKay. When he came out he was freshly showered.

Greg wouldn't have thought that Sheppard could surprise him, but he'd been wrong. It wasn't enough that Sheppard had probably slept with half of the female residents of Atlantis. He fucked the guys, too. Those who let him at least.

~~

_When Greg joined the army he stopped setting up fires outside. The only thing he allowed himself was a candle that he lit when he felt really bad and needed to calm down. He looked at the flame and pictured a large fire, powerful and unstoppable. It set his mind at rest._

~~

Sheppard was back in McKay's room the fifth night.

"I'm sure you were mistaken," Lorne told him, when Greg reported what he'd found. Greg wasn't sure if Sheppard was also sleeping with Lorne or if Lorne was simply blinded by Sheppard's charm. He hadn't actually seen Sheppard stay with anyone other than McKay. That didn't make it better in Greg's eyes.

~~

_Greg went there every now and then. He didn't touch anything. He just watched the containers with their powerful contents, imagining what they were capable of._

~~

He needed to calm down. He went into the panic room, barely checking that he was alone.

He had gotten used to Sheppard punishing him for alleged shortcomings. But McKay didn't have the right. 

Greg longed for a fire. Hot, loud, large flames. McKay and Sheppard inside. Two men, who spat on the rules and dared to call on him, when he didn't do their bidding. To see their looks of superiority melt away in fear would be as soothing as the fire itself. He imagined them still naked from fucking and suddenly the floor around them coming alight, capturing them in a wall of fire.

He wouldn't kill them of course. But then, he realized, he wouldn't have to. They could call for help. It would expose them as what they were, and that would be justice, wouldn't it? They'd even have a choice. Live and pay the price of their actions or die.

Greg laughed. He wouldn't do it. But the thought alone had calmed him down.

He looked at the red squares once more, smiling before he left the room. If he wondered about the equipment he'd need to light up a floor around a bed without the occupants noticing beforehand, that were just idle thoughts. And those couldn't harm anyone, could they?


End file.
